Blog - Page 65
A collection of 2,517 blog posts
A lot of people want to help women succeed in the business world lately, which is an awesome trend to see. There are an ever-growing number of programs and initiatives focusing on everything from getting girls interested in coding to getting professional women into leadership roles. One interesting offshoot of this trend has been an emphasis on language and speech—it feels like more and more well-meaning people are giving thought to the words women should say (and not say), and how they should
If you’ve been on social media for any length of time, you may be well aware that images can help boost your online engagement. But while it’s true that a picture can add some pizazz to your posts, it’s not always easy to determine the best type of image to publish. They can also take a long time to create, especially when you’re not sure what you’re trying to communicate. Thankfully, deciding which format best suits your posts can be a straightforward process. In this post, I’ll outline a few
Hi there! This is an older post that we’ve kept around for transparency but that means that sometimes the information is no longer accurate. Head to our homepage to view our most recent posts. I remember the feeling—the sleepless night beforehand, the nervousness in the pit of my stomach. I was waiting for the results of my annual performance review. Performance reviews—most often yearly—are how many companies provide feedback to their employees. They often involve a numeric rating and
The Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year for 2015 was in fact not a word. It was the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji. This one ? You’ll no doubt recognise it – here’s how it looks across different platforms: This feels like a significant acknowledgement that the way a large number of us communicate is shifting. It’s no longer just teenagers or younger people who are using emoji’s, hashtags and neologisms – they’ve reached the mainstream. In this post, we dig a bit deeper into how ou
First college graduate from my family. Vegan. Working mom. Cherokee. Mormon. Queer. There are so many beautiful forms of diversity, and we’ve had an amazing crash course. In spring of 2015 we opened up Buffer’s Diversity Dashboard, a passion project for me and many other Buffer teammates focused on creating an inclusive team. The dashboard shares real-time data on the demographic diversity of the Buffer team, as well as those who’ve expressed interest in joining our team. We gather this
Hi there! This is an out of date post that we’ve kept around for transparency purposes. Go here to view the latest version of this post. One of the things we’ve always been interested in doing at Buffer is looking at compensation differently and transparently. In the latest update of our transparent salaries formula, one key change was that we began to pay teammates more money if they had dependents, or family members who depended on their income. The formula that we originally came up
In the #bufferchat this week, Anil Dash shared his thoughts and insights about diversity and inclusivity in the tech world. We discussed how diversity impacts technology, how to work through challenges, and how we can foster a more diverse tech community. It was an hour of thoughtful conversation and idea sharing! Catch our weekly Twitter chat, #bufferchat, every week on Wednesdays, 9 am PT / 12 pm ET / 5 pm UTC, for valua
We talk about Social Media a lot! Everyone wants to be part of it, everyone tries to keep up with it and understand it, and everyone tries to find the latest tips and tricks to be better at it. But what is social media really like? How does it feel to be part of it? What if an alien came to earth and you had to explain social media and what it feels like to them, how would you do it? We have gathered 20 metaphors that we feel explain social media perfectly (okay, technically they are similes,
Every so often a new app will suddenly appear on App Store and get everyone talking. The latest app to do this is Peach – a new social networking app from Dom Hofmann, co-founder of video-based social network Vine. Peach is “a fun, simple way to keep up with friends and be yourself,” and has exploded onto the scene – breaking into the top #10 Social Networking apps in the App Store already (there’s currently no Android version). We decided to drive below the surface and investigate how Peach
The Internet is becoming increasingly cluttered. In 2005, we were reportedly exposed to over 3,500 brand messages per day. Nowadays, that figure is closer to 10,000 (if not already higher). 5.3 trillion display ads are shown online each year, 400 million Tweets sent daily, and 4.75 billion pieces of content shared on Facebook every day. This relentless stream of content makes it harder than ever for your message to cut through the noise and get attention. And while there’s no secret formula
Life is a mashup of passions, purposes, and pursuits. The role we play at work is only a small part of who we are. Yet often, it’s the only part employers care about. Traditionally, when we arrive at work, we leave something at the office door—and the same applies to getting home. We almost separate into two different personas. In fact, a fascinating study by Deloitte found that more than half of us cover up some part of our identity at work to try to fit in—underrepresented groups feeling th
Hi there! This is an older post that we’ve kept around for transparency but that means that sometimes the information is no longer accurate. Head to our homepage to view our most recent posts. Buffer is a fully distributed team, which means that our teammates work from anywhere! Our official headquarters is in California, but we don’t have an office anywhere anymore. Although this is rare, it seems to be a growing trend. As we grow, it has been great to see how larger remote companies s
For years, there have been rumours flying around that Twitter would one day remove their 140 character limit. It appears that day could be close, as on Tuesday (January 5th, 2016), Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey gave the biggest hint yet that this may become a reality. In his post Dorsey explains: “We’ve spent a lot of time observing what people are doing on Twitter, and we see them taking screenshots of text and tweeting it.” (Dorsey’s post was shared in the form of a screenshot of some text). “In
Are you looking for a free, high-quality social media icon set to bring your website, content or maybe even business cards to life? Every individual and business has their own style and finding the perfect icon set to match can be tough – not to mention, very time-consuming. In this post, we’ve collected 50+ social media icons sets to help save you some time and find the perfect set of icons – no matter what your style! Let’s get right into it. 1. Iconmonstr Iconmonstr has become one of my f
Hi there! This is an older post that we’ve kept around for transparency but that means that sometimes the information is no longer accurate. Head to our homepage to view our most recent posts. The makeup of the Buffer product team is constantly in motion. We’re always evolving in search of the ideal team structure that helps us move as quickly as possible and make the most impact for the community. I sat down recently and tried to articulate how we’re aspiring to approach one piece of th
Hi there! This is an older post that we’ve kept around for transparency but that means that sometimes the information is no longer accurate. Something a lot of people tend to be surprised about when they join the Buffer team (or even speak to a Buffer teammate for an extended time) is how specific, deliberate, and careful we are with the language we use. There are literally no harsh words at Buffer, or at least none that I’ve ever heard. No brusquely worded requests, no passive aggressiv
Social networks are always making updates and tweaks to their platforms. And in a recent update, Twitter removed share counts from their Tweet buttons, affecting many bloggers and publishers. As some data has started to emerge on how the has change affected content sharing on Twitter, we wanted to dive below the surface of this update and see how this change could affect marketers. Let’s get started. Meet Twitter’s new share buttons Like other recent Twitter changes, this one appears mostl
Heads up! This is an older post that references some outdated processes at Buffer, specifically the “Buffer bootcamp” Feel free to see the latest information here, including all the reasons why we retired this concept! We’re Retiring The ‘Buffer Bootcamp’ Period For New Teammates – Here’s Why Editor’s Note: When someone new joins us at Buffer, they go through the Buffer Bootcamp (don’t worry; it’s not as scary as it sounds!). It’s a 45-day trial period designed to make sure there’s a great fit
How important is customer service via social media? According to J.D. Power, 67% of consumers have used a company’s social media channel for customer service. And when they do, they expect a fast response. Research cited by Jay Baer tells us that 42% of consumers expect a response with 60 minutes. So, how’s your social media customer service? For this post I was excited to research a set of 14 amazing examples of customer service using social media. Let’s get started! 1. Samsung: A Unicyc
Hello friends! I’m Deborah , Culture Scout for the Buffer team. I’ve been very lucky to join the Buffer team in October and finish my bootcamp a couple of weeks ago. What is a Culture Scout, you might ask? I’m part of the People team and my role is to bring on new folks to the Buffer journey, with a focus on finding people that are as passionate about our values as we are, and those who we believe can co
One of the coolest perks we have at Buffer team is that all team members (and their family members!) get a free Kindle and all the Kindle books they want to read—any book, anytime, no questions asked. As a result, we end up reading a wide assortment of stuff—from popular and critically-acclaimed fiction to resources that help us build better products or improve ourselves in some way. As a team, we read 1074 books in 2015—a 63.7% increase from last year’s total of 656 books. (Of course, the te
There’s often a critical time (or two) in a business’s journey when it’s make or break and time is at a premium. There’re often times beyond this, once a brand is established, where time is still scarce and efficiency is the name of the game. The team at Smart Pension has felt both sides of this in the past couple years and has experienced the time crunch particularly on the social media side (sound familiar at all with your experience?). One of the UK’s leading pension companies, the Smart Pe
We have some very exciting news to share in this month’s investor update: we’ve acquired Respondly, a social media customer service and brand monitoring tool! With this move, we will reposition Buffer in the coming months to be a full social media solution for companies across both customer service and marketing departments. Read on for more on this and all the other news from November… Overall key metrics * 2,921,380 total registered users (+2.8%) * 220,988 monthly active users (-2.5%)
We’ve talked about how important of a tool video is becoming for marketers. Every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube, Facebook has 8 billion daily video views and Snapchat users watch 6 billion videos daily. Video views are growing so fast that if you don’t jump in now, you might miss out on one of the biggest opportunities for you and/or your company. And that’s why I wanted to talk about Twitter video, which is something not a lot of marketers have embraced yet! Let’